Silvana Estrada explores love as a political force on new EP ‘Abrazo’

[photos by Jackie Russo]

In the haunting vibrato of Silvana Estrada’s vocals lies an existential tension between vulnerability and power. You’ll find yourself sobbing in the face of beauty, smiling through sorrow, and — if you’re listening closely enough — understanding that these are all one and the same. That there is strength in vulnerability, hope in pain, and seeds planted in the soil of despair. 

The 25-year-old Mexican singer describes her new EP, Abrazo, as a luminous celebration of life, in all its complexity. The EP’s standout track, “Si Me Matan,” — a poetic meditation on womanhood and protest song against femicide — has been sung in 8M marches and feminist demonstrations across Latin America following its release.

This Saturday, Estrada plays two intimate shows at Stanford Live’s Bing Studio in the penultimate U.S. stop of her world tour. Ahead of the concert, El Tecolote spoke with her about the politics of love, collectivity, and what’s next for her. 

I want to start by asking about your roots, because you carry them in your music. You said in an interview last year that sometimes when you listen to songs you can “hear the landscape.” Can you speak a bit on that with relation to your music? How are your songs synonymous with Veracruz? 

I love music that makes evident not just the singer but also much more beyond that—when you can hear the land, the landscape, and roots in the music. I try to make music like that, music that’s very connected to my roots. Even though I often experiment with other sounds and with folclor, I always try to keep my roots present. My music carries the land I’m from, my pueblo, Veracruz—especially with Marchita, which is a sort of homage to my family. [The fact that] it has violins, cellos, double basses, violas, and that everything was recorded with wood instruments in a wooden house in a field is an homage to how I grew up, because my parents are luthiers and they make these instruments.

I was also raised in a house in a field, between coffee plantations and rivers, and feel very connected to nature. I try to convey all of this—this sense of place—so that anyone who wants to can be a part of it. 

What was your process for writing the songs on Abrazo? How did it compare to writing Marchita?

I wrote the EP Abrazo in quarantine, which is crazy because Marchita is a much more introspective, solitary album, but I wrote it during pre-pandemic normality. And Abrazo is a mix of songs that I wrote during the same period as Marchita, but that were too happy to include on the album… “Aquí” [and] “Si Me Matan” are songs that I wrote during that pandemic that evoke a lot of hope, faith, our life in the present, and connection. It was during my solitude that I truly valued collectivity, and sound. That’s the big difference between Marchita and Abrazo. Marchita is a very solitary album—a journey within, to my own heart. It’s dark, cave-like, there is little light. And Abrazo is luminous, it’s exactly the opposite.

It’s a celebration of life, love, collectivity. It’s a celebration of and a defense of women. It’s seeing us united. It’s strong. I had to live through a pandemic and become distanced from my people to truly value friendship, connection and community. It’s beautiful. I love this EP because it conveys something that I myself needed to hear. 

I really like the idea of love and collectivity as intertwined. In an interview with Ecleen Luzmila Caraballo you said, “I’m going to make a democracy of the love that I feel. I’m not going to give it all to a guy…because I have all this love. I want to give it to my mother, to my father, to my siblings, to my friends, to myself…to my plants, to my pets, to the world.” Can you elaborate on that idea and how it’s reflected in Abrazo?

When I speak about collectivity in songs like “Se Me Ocurre,” or “Brindo,” I reframe love as a collective force—as emotional material that we have learned badly. We’ve been taught, of romantic love, that once we have a partner all of our love goes to them, and I think a lot of the time we stop giving it to ourselves, but also to our friends, and our families. On “Brindo” and “Se Me Ocurre,” I celebrate friends; I talk about how we need to celebrate all our connections, and be thankful for love—which is marvelous in all its facets—but without forgetting that it’s a force that envelops all of humanity.

Creating a democracy of the love we feel is hard because [we were raised] with stories about princesses, alone in the world until a man saves them, and to whom they give all their love in turn. Stories like that have done a lot of harm and in my music—which is romantic—I want to talk about love from a much more sovereign, egalitarian place. 

I’m thinking of love not just as a collective force but as a political force. I see that with “Si Me Matan.” 

Definitely. “Si Me Matan” has this hope and this idea of love as a political tool for understanding, and fighting against, conflict. Now in Mexico the simple fact of being hopeful means resisting. It’s hard to talk about love within feminism because we’re seeing terrible things, women are living through a very difficult moment—we always are—but this year in Mexico especially, there’s been a lot of violence. In the world, what’s happening in [Iran]…Women are angry, we’re fighting—and the best political motivation for me is love. Care. The desire to be happy and see my community happy is my motivation to be outspoken, to involve myself in the causes I find just. 

Creating a democracy of the love we feel is hard because [we were raised] with stories about princesses, alone in the world until a man saves them, and to whom they give all their love in turn. Stories like that have done a lot of harm and in my music—which is romantic—I want to talk about love from a much more sovereign, egalitarian place. 

Silvana Estrada

I also think it’s fascinating that Abrazo is happy, because every time I listen to “Si Me Matan,” I cry. What’s the line between pain and love?

That’s an interesting question, because Abrazo is about hope, happiness, and community. But “Si Me Matan” also makes me cry. It’s a very honest and tough meditation on what it means to be a woman. I think that line between pain and love, and happiness, and hope blurs a lot when we honestly narrate what’s happening. When I set out to make “Si Me Matan,” I wanted to make a song that was a real narration of what it felt like to be a woman in this country, and I realized that even in my pain and my grief and my fear there was a lot of love, and luckily, there was still hope. I wanted that to be in the song because it coexists within all of us, all the time.

Inside our fear and our solitude, in our feeling that no one cares for us or defends us politically…there is hope, and love. It’s all in there. “Si Me Matan” helped me understand that the line between all these things blurs, and in reality they’re all just one thing: our feelings, our existence. 

For those that don’t know the context of “Si Me Matan”— Who is the song for? What motivated you to write it? 

It took me a long time to write [“Si Me Matan”] because it was so hard to find the right words. It’s a story from several years ago, when a young woman, [Mara Fernanda Castilla]—we were the same age at the time, 19—went home in a [rideshare] and was killed. It’s a terrible, sad, frightening story, but tragically, we hear it all the time. What most affected me, and what most affected us as women in Mexican society, was the amount of newscasts and radio commentators that blamed her, using the rhetoric that ‘Well, if they killed her, she shouldn’t have been alone at night.’ That generated a lot of pain in our communities, among women, and a marvelous hashtag—‘SiMeMatan’ (‘If They Kill Me’) —began to take off. Too often, people say it’s our fault, and it’s terrible. I’ve seen it happen since I was a kid, and that dehumanization of victims has always affected me a lot.

It’s a matter of racism, classism, a thousand things. But for this hashtag, #SiMeMatan, people would write on Twitter, or wherever, what they wanted to be said about them. ‘I want them to say that I was a mother to three kids, that I worked, that I studied, that I always fought for what I wanted,’ that sort of thing. A lot of people began writing these messages, to record what they would want to be said about them, so that no one would make up lies about our lives. 

Ever since I was fifteen I have traveled alone, lived at night, played in bars. When I finished playing I would call an Uber, I would go to the airport—all alone, and as a woman in this country. It was striking to think that if I were killed, they would say I was exactly what a woman shouldn’t be, because in the eyes of a conservative, machista society, I am, aren’t I?

So I wanted to leave my own letter, made into a song. I took years to find the words, because at first I was so angry that I was writing from a place of hatred, and rancor, [but] I realized we didn’t need a song like that. [I wanted] hope—to come back to love as a political driving force. 

There were very powerful marches in Colombia, and in the plazas they would play [“Si Me Matan”] from the speakers. The 8-M Movement across Latin America sings the song as they march. I’m so proud and grateful. 

It was striking to think that if I were killed, they would say I was exactly what a woman shouldn’t be, because in the eyes of a conservative, machista society, I am, aren’t I?

Silvana Estrada

Looking forward—there’s a clear line from Marchita to Abrazo. Any plans for what’s next? What are you looking forward to?

Yes! In quarantine I made so many songs and I have a whole album of new music that I’m working on and want to release, probably next summer. I’m excited, there are songs I really like…about love and heartbreak again [laughs] because they’re the themes I’m most drawn to. And I’m happy to be back in Mexico, where I can work on all this material and perform it as soon as possible. 

I took years to find the words, because at first I was so angry that I was writing from a place of hatred, and rancor, [but] I realized we didn’t need a song like that. [I wanted] hope—to come back to love as a political driving force. 

Silvana Estrada